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Business as usual for Australia and Indonesia, despite code of conduct

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Australia and Indonesia have kissed and made up, and signed a new code of conduct, putting last year's spying scandal well behind them.

At least that's the message both countries are keen to convey.

But according to Associate Professor Greg Fealy, head of the Department of Political and Social Change, at the ANU (Australian National University), it's business as usual for both countries.

I caught up with him from Jakarta a short time ago.

Greg Fealy, thank you very much for your time today. The wording is tricky. It talks about both countries no longer undertaking surveillance in a way that would be detrimental to the other nation's national interest.

Is that a loophole that allows both parties to continue spying?

GREG FEALY: I think in effect that's exactly the case. That kind of wording is open to a wide array of interpretations and I think what the code does is provide a kind of impression that both countries have agreed to do things differently but in reality there will probably be no changes and I would suggest on either side.

Both governments use intelligence services, both governments are involved in surveillance of many countries in their region, and I think that's just the facts of the matter and that's what's going to continue well into the future.

All this has done is provide a circuit breaker.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: So we're effectively seeing a diplomatic dance, if you like, where one thing is being said publicly but the opposite is said privately?

GREG FEALY: Indeed, and that's what, I think that's understood on both sides and certainly the Indonesian government and private senior political figures will acknowledge that they understand that there will be continuing intelligence going on, that they themselves will be doing it.

So I think this is one of those kinds of diplomatic situations where forms of words have to be found that enable people to go to the public and say that things have changed when in reality not a great deal has changed.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Was Indonesia genuinely blind-sided by the spying revelations or did it use that incident as political leverage?

GREG FEALY: I think the anger here was genuine and I don't think they used this necessarily for political leverage but they certainly didn't like the Indonesian government, the Yudhoyono government certainly didn't like having news such as this splashed on the front pages of newspaper because amongst other things it made Indonesia look very vulnerable to foreign intelligence operations.

And the fact that the president and those closest to him may have had their phones tapped or at least the metadata from their phone usage recorded, was I think something of a shock.

People inside government at higher levels of government would know that this kind of activity is possible but they don't like to see it on the front pages.

No country would for that matter. When there have been occasions when they've been intelligence revelations about spying on Australia, Australians have also reacted somewhat unhappily about that.

So I think we can understand to some extent the Indonesian point of view. To my mind, there's been a little bit too much outrage given that Indonesia itself engages in these kinds of activities and that has been admitted by the former head of the national intelligence agency Hendropriyono, admitted in some detail by the way.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: The Indonesian foreign minister Marty Natalegawa was quite outspoken during that spy scandal, during the coverage. If he retains his position under Joko Widodo, will that be good or bad for Australia?

GREG FEALY: I suspect a lot of Australian diplomats would be happier to not see Marty Natalegawa as foreign minister in the next government.

I think there are some questions about his professionalism. We've had revelations about private briefings being released to the public.

I think something also unheard of: when Marty met Julie Bishop in the United States, it emerged that when Tony Abbott rang Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, that there were other people present in the room, including journalists.

So there are beaches of diplomatic protocols which I don't think reflect at all well upon Marty Natalegawa. I think it is very unlikely he'll retain his position. I think the incoming government will have a different list of candidates for the foreign ministership and I think that we'll probably see him taking on another role come October.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: That's Associate Professor Greg Fealy from the Australian National University, speaking to us there from Jakarta.

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